The Week In Links—November 22

Just a couple of dudes in front of the Booty Lounge. (image via Facebook)

Only eight days left to buy a one dollar raffle ticket for beloved tumblr blog and sex workers’ mutual aid organization Sex Worker Problems/The Pink Phoenix’s give away! Each gift bag is worth over $350, and the prizes include iTunes gift cards, Amazon gift cards, and premium advertising credits at slixa. The proceeds will go towards helping Pink Phoenix with the cost of filing for non-profit status and purchasing care package items for sex workers in need.

Detroit’s mobile strip club, the Booty Lounge, is back in business because AMERICA!

When will they learn? An owner of a couple of strip clubs in Texas is getting sued, by two D.J.s, for — WAIT FOR IT— violating federal labor law.

Oooh la la! British P.M. David Cameron followed a “high-class” escort agency on twitter. An almost-scandal ensues!

Threatened and isolated, a brave and resourceful full service sex worker from Hungary managed to escape a trafficking gang with the help of her clients. The gang allegedly trafficked over 50 women into England.

Sex worker health organization Persist Health Project is partnering with the Space at Tompkins, an organization for transient youth, to host a week of events, offering Know Your Rights trainings, health and wellness workshops, storytelling events, shared meals, clothing for free or by small donation, health consultations and more. Tits and Sass contributor Lily Fury will be doing a reading for the occasion on Monday the 25th, 8 PM, 75 E. 4th St. NY NY.

Wife of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Cindy McCain, called the Super Bowl the “largest human trafficking venue on the planet” (um, source?) and criticized the NFL for not doing more to combat human trafficking. She also said she’d like to bring the issue of human trafficking to Congress: “This issue’s not sexy on Capitol Hill yet, but we’re going to make it sexy.” Right.

In related news, Brazilian police prepare for the World Cup with a series of brothel raids, including one on mega brothel Centaurus, made notorious by Justin Bieber’s visit earlier this month. Yet another instance of the headline saying it all: “Brothel Raids Endanger Rio’s Sex Workers.”

HuffPo interviews filmmakers Annalise Ophelian and StormMiguel Florez on their documentary Major!, a paean to the life of Black trans woman elder, activist extraordinaire, and and former sex worker Miss Major. Read it in belated honor of the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

The Scarlet Alliance will be hosting a rally in Sydney, Australia on Nov. 27th.

Vice Magazine wants to know why the Canadian media is still referring to sex workers as “prostitutes.”

More than one million dollars was seized and then returned (thank goodness) to a stripper in Nebraska.

Instead of condoms, sex workers in Kenya are using antiretroviral drugs postcoitally as STI prevention: ” ‘We don’t have money, and when you meet a client who offers to give you more money than you usually get, you have sex without protection even when you don’t know his HIV status.’ ”

Legendary strip club Shotgun Willie’s has finally changed locations. In preparation for the move the club auctioned off some interesting relics.

A brothel owner who hates having to take care of his legal employees like they’re legal employees — no surprise there. I’d also like a stat on the rates of STIs and Aids among non-brothel sex workers in the US. That comment is particularly amusing since Caressa used to be an indie escort herself.